Sorting out swaps

Bargain hunters have long enjoyed the swap stations that some area communities run at their landfills or trash-transfer stations, where residents bring unwanted books, furniture, toys, and other reusable items for others to take.

But officials say some “shoppers’’ have become more aggressive in recent years, fighting over items, hoarding carloads of discarded goods for resale, and in general just being rude and nasty to staffers, volunteers, and other patrons.

The problems have gotten so bad in Newton that officials temporarily shut down its book swap, while Needham started having employees monitor its swap area for the first time, and Wellesley trained volunteers on how to deescalate heated situations.

“There are definitely people who linger,’’ said Needham resident Carolyn Bickford, who on a recent Saturday scored a pair of Moon Shoes - essentially miniature trampolines that a child can use to jump to superhuman heights - for her 4-year-old son.

Bickford said she drops by the swap area once a week, mainly to find toys for her children that she brings back once they’ve outgrown them.

But, she said, some residents clearly use the site to harvest for profit-based enterprises, hovering to snag the best items. She said she had just brought a wheelbarrow to leave at the swap area, but someone offered to take it off her hands before she even reached the building.

“We have a lot of people who abuse the system for profit,’’ confirmed Mario Araya, the superintendent of the Needham facility. He said that once someone tried to take a woman’s shopping bag - full of brand-new merchandise - from the trunk of her car.

“They assumed that that bag was going to be dropped off, and they wanted first dibs,’’ Araya said.

He said that in addition to people looking to make money, others abuse the system by dropping off unusable items in an attempt to avoid pay-as-you-throw trash fees.

“This is for people who want to drop something useful,’’ said Araya. “We don’t want people to get upset and take a puzzle home with 900 pieces when there’s supposed to be 2,000.’’

Araya said problems have lessened this summer, after the town hired staff to oversee the swap.

In Newton, problems with a book swap and electronics drop-off led the city to shut down both operations this summer. Thomas Daley, the city’s public works commissioner, said some people became hostile when staffers told them not to take electronics from the drop-off or to limit the number of books they were taking.

“People were coming in and taking whole shelves of books,’’ Daley said. “People are taking stuff and making money on it.’’

Daley said the electronics drop-off will remain closed because residents can now arrange for curbside pickup of the items, but he said the book swap will probably reopen this fall after officials have had time to decide how to solve the problems.

Problems also forced Wellesley to close its swap area several years ago, said Gordon Martin, the recycling and disposal facility’s superintendent. But, he said, a large band of volunteers stepped forward to help transform the site from a largely disorganized free-for-all into an orderly, well-run facility.

Martin said past problems included fighting over items and people challenging one another’s eligibility to use the residents-only facility.

He remembered an incident in which two men were arguing over some items, and one of the men tried to lay claim to an entire table of goods. Martin said he asked the man why he felt entitled to all of the items.

“He said, ‘Because I’ve been living in this town for 40 years, and he’s only been living in this town for two,’ ’’ Martin recalled.

The site’s 60 volunteers, who work in shifts of up to seven on busy Saturdays, underwent new training this winter. Martin said they used role-playing exercises to learn how to enforce the site’s rules, including its daily 30-minute shopping limit, without being confrontational.

Volunteers also agreed to a code of conduct, which prohibits them from “shopping’’ while on duty, requires them to wear a yellow vest and name tag, and leaves residential verifications to town employees.

Martin said he has received four complaints this year about the reusable area, down from around five a week last year.

Volunteer Anne Lysaght remembers back before the 30-minute rule was enforced.

“People would come, bring a chair, and sit for the whole day,’’ Lysaght said. “They’d come up to your trunk, plow through it, but not help you unload.’’

“They did used to fight,’’ said Martha McGandy, a Wellesley resident who often browses the reusable area for items that her adult children might need. “It was ridiculous.’’ Now, she said, the worst offenders have “been squelched. They don’t dare because they’ll get kicked out.’’

Officials in Carlisle and Sudbury said they’ve noticed some aggressive behavior at their swap stations, too.

“It’s at the point where I just wish they’d shut it down. It’s an aggravation for me,’’ said Dan Stevens, a supervisor at the Sudbury transfer station, adding that the rule against commercial contractors is difficult to enforce. “I’ve had old women go at each other. I’ve had men and women go at it. I’ve seen kids fighting with each other.’’

Stevens said, however, that only a small percentage of users cause most of the problems. And some residents who use the facility said that most people are quite neighborly.

“It’s very amicable,’’ said Linda Muri, adding that she hasn’t noticed any fighting over items.

Gary Davis, Carlisle’s public works superintendent, said his crew jokingly set up a five-minute parking sign that someone had dropped off at the facility’s swap area.

“There’s been some people who are trying to get stuff before it even gets out of cars,’’ Davis said. “One time a couple of kids rode their bicycles in to look in the swap shed, and before they knew it, one of the bicycles was gone.’’

Of course, not all eager shoppers are greedy. Some are just enthusiastic.

Bickford, the Needham woman who complained of for-profit lurkers at the swap area there, happened to see a set of golf clubs arrive just as she was leaving.

She grabbed the clubs even before they reached the swap area, the same behavior she said she had witnessed from others.

“I’m doing it,’’ she said, smiling.